Buzz Cut
by Fallen Ark Angel
Summary: In which Paul's transformation from Cerebral Assassin to Corporate Assassin comes full circle. - One-shot.


Stephanie was glued to her phone as she came through the front door, hardly even reaching down to pat the head of her mastiff, Bluto, when the old pooch came to greet her. Hearing the sounds of her husband and three daughters in what sounded like the kitchen, she didn't look up once from the text she was reading as she headed that way.

Aurora, her oldest as six, was talking rather loudly about something that had to do with her school, Steph could tell that much, but the second that he saw her, Paul began interrupting the little girl's story to loudly pretend to tell his own.

"And then," he began, but feigned as if he'd been in the middle of a conversation, "we'll all jump out and yell surprise! And we'll give Mommy this big cake that says Happy 50th Birthday on it-"

"Ha ha." The woman still didn't look up either, as she was replying then to the text message. "You're closer to fifty than me, mister."

At the moment, the girl's were at the table, eating a snack, while their father stood over them, mostly making sure his youngest, at all of two, didn't make _too_ big of a mess. Just a normal sized mess.

His six year old, however, gave him some mighty heavy glares then, annoyed that he'd interrupted her story for, what she could tell, was completely drivel, while his four year old, Murphy, just frowned over at her father, mouth filled with an apple slice, confused as to what was going on.

"Am I though?"

"By, like, eight years, yeah." She was done with her phone then, but didn't look towards him as she'd walked passed the table and her family, heading over too the fridge to find her own snack. "How was school today, Aurora? Better?"

"Yes," her daughter told her with a smile, finished with her father then. Clearly, her mother would listen to her story. "I liked it a lot better."

"That's good," Steph said as she pulled out a container of yogurt. "I told you it'd just take a little while to get used to a new school year. That's all."

"Yeah." Paul smiled real big, over at the table, even though Steph had yet to look at him. He kept glancing at her, waiting for the big moment when she did give him a glance, but it had yet to come. "That's what I told her. First Grade is, like, for all the cool kids, Rora. You won't miss Kindergarten at all in a few days. It's for chumps." Then his grin fell, glancing down at his middle daughter. "Other than, like, for you, Murph. I'm sure it'll be great, next year."

That meant nothing to the four year old (school was just a place she watch Rora go to and occasionally pretended to play when she felt like being a teacher), but she did finally get that dang apple swallowed and, able to at last, said loudly, "Mommy, did you see Daddy's hair?"

It was silent too then, as Steph turned real quick and Paul made a face. Aurora, however, broke that silence as Steph stared over at her husband that she'd seen, only hours before, with a full head of hair and now completely void of any.

"Murphy!" She glared at her younger sister. "You weren't supposed to say anything! It was gonna be a surprise!"

"Yeah, Steph." Paul grinned rather widely as she only stood there, phone in one hand, yogurt cup in the other, at a loss for words. "Surprise."

She swallowed too, the nothing in her mouth, as she stared over a her husband. "You're...bald."

"I'm not bald." Paul stepped away from the table and over towards her. Reaching up, he patted at his head. "I still have-"

"Paul, why would you-"

"We talked about-"

"No, we did not!"

"Yes, we did. We both agreed that-"

"We said that _maybe_ it was time to think about cutting it, but-"

"And I thought about it. And then did it. Today. I-"

"This much?"

"If it was going to go-"

"You can't be-"

"Do you not like it, Mommy?" Aurora, who was finished with her apple and orange slices, sat up real tall then, grinning over at the woman. "I do. And so does Murphy."

The four year old nodded. "Daddy's pretty."

"I'm not pretty, Murph." Paul frowned back over at her. "If anything, I was pretty before, with all that woman's hair."

"Daddy was a girl," Aurora told her younger sister who only giggled softly. The youngest of three Levesque girls laughed too, but it was only because her sisters did. And because she was having so much fun squishing the orange slices between her fingers.

"Vaughn though," Paul said, nodding over towards the toddler, "now, she don't like it."

At her name, the child looked up. When Paul grinned over at her though, her face crumpled in a way it only did when she was forced to do something she didn't like, such as eating those disgusting chopped up veggies her mother fed her (why couldn't she just eat fruit; she liked fruit) or when the doggie would lick her face _too_ much (there was a balance and, apparently, no one had ever taught it to Bluto), before Vaughn called out for her mother, reaching for the woman while she was at it.

Making a face at her husband, she said, "Great. Now you scare the children."

"The child. The baby. Does it really count? Huh? If you scare babies? They're pretty easy to scare."

"She's not a baby," Steph said, though she lifted the girl into her arms regardless after setting down what was in her hands, pressing a kiss to her youngest's soft, blonde locks. "She just knows what she likes and what she doesn't."

"Well, she loses out, two to one." He nodded over at Aurora and Murphy. "They think I looked great."

"Pretty," Murphy repeated.

"Prettier," Aurora corrected because duh.

"Handsome," Steph amended futher, but it was with a slight frown as Paul came closer. It wasn't for her that he was coming, but rather Vaughn, who shoved at his face when he was close enough.

"Vaughn-"

"You couldn't have told me you were doing it, Paul?" Steph wasn't concerned with her husband's attempts to pander to their toddler who shoved at him once more when he tried to get too close. "Or something?"

His head was bent down as he tried to make cute faces at Vaughn, in hopes of winning her over (she wasn't having it), making it easy for Steph to reach out with the arm that wasn't holding their daughter and run a hand across his fuzzy head.

It only made her frown more.

"It's practically all gone."

"It is not. And you'll get used to it." Paul finally just snatched Vaughn up, against her complaints and whines of no and stop. Nuzzling his head against the toddler's, he spoke to his wife as he said, "I get used to all your hair issues."

"Hair issues?"

Wrong word choice.

Still, he only shrugged, cradling Vaughn in his arms so that he could snuggle her properly and shower her with kisses. To Steph, he said, "Some months you're blonde, some months you aren't. Some times it's curly, sometimes it's not. Sometimes-"

"I have not chopped it all off though."

"So? If you did do you think I'd just pack up the girls and leave you here alone with the dog?"

"Well, no, but-"

"You should." He turned from her then, tickling the then wiggly toddler in his arms. "Because I would."

Steph's eye game was strong as she glared at his back, but Paul had his other jealous girls to contend with then.

"Daddy, I wanna play!" Not finding snack time nearly as entertaining as that special attention Vaughn was getting (heck, she'd have claimed him to be prettier with long hair if she knew that was what you got out of it), Murphy literally stood up in her chair and reached for him as well. "No fair!"

With a laugh, Paul shifted the then giggling toddler one arm before going to pick up his middle daughter as well. To Steph, he said, "It wasn't a snap decision, babe, and you know it. I told you before I needed to just go ahead and do it. I looked stupid, walking around the office all the time with my hair pulled back in a bun. Like a woman."

"You'd make, like, the ugliest woman in the world," she retorted.

"But a woman nonetheless." Murphy got a kiss from the man as he moved around the kitchen table then, over to Aurora, who had stood in her chair as well, though that was so that she could wrap her arms around the man's neck, when he bent down. "Tight, Rora. So you don't fall."

Steph made that usual annoyed look that she had when Paul insisted on carrying all three of his daughters in this way, but the same nagging smile was there, tugging at her lips, showing through regardless of how hard she fought it.

"You think," she said as Aurora about choked him, hanging so tightly from his neck, "that being cute will just end this conversation? Paul?"

"Who's being cute? Is it you?" He nuzzled his head against Murphy's before just as quickly the grinning Vaughn. "Or you?" Then he glanced over his shoulder. "Was it you, Rora?"

"No," was her response, though his other daughters were too busy giggling to say much of anything.

"Then I just don't know who your mother's talkin' about. Because I sure as heck ain't cute." He walked forwards, carefully for a moment, as if unsure if Aurora would be able to keep her hold on his neck, but she seemed to. "Especially now that I got rid of that dang ponytail."

"I like ponies," Murphy informed him as Steph only kept her blue eyes locked with his, even when he was standing right in front of her. "A lot."

"What are you then? Huh? Corporate Hunter?"

He almost cursed, Paul did, at Steph's words, but fought off the f-bomb as he said simply, "I ain't no different. At all. Just will feel more comfortable in a suit. So-"

"Oh, I got it now." Steph tapped a finger against her lips. "You're no longer the Cerebral Assassin."

"Heck yeah I am."

"Now you're the _Corporate_ Assassin."

"I can think of something I can do to your ass in a second, but-"

"Paul."

And that wasn't funny. Not in front of the girls.

Still, he only bounced the two in his arms before saying, "It needed to be done. You know that. And now Daddy needs to go set these guys down somewhere."

"You need to give them to me," she pointed out, frowning just a bit. "You were going to work out this afternoon, remember? Or did your buzz cut give you a buzz in general?"

"I remember. I'm just having too good a time with you girls here." He knew Aurora's arms had to be tired then and walked on, passed his wife, calling over his shoulder, "And for someone throwing around accusations, Steph, I think all these little faces you've made in the past ten minutes have been super cute."

"Super cute," Murphy agreed as Aurora only giggled. Paul only took them to the living room, where he sat Vaughn down next to the by then sleeping Bluto and Murphy and Aurora down on the couch.

"You do know just how cute it is, right?" Steph asked as she followed them in there, stopping to get a spoon from her yogurt first. "For you to say super cute? Right? Paul?"

"Shuddup." He leaned down to kiss both Aurora and Murphy's heads before going to do the same to Vaughn. Then, heading off out of the living room, to dress out for his workout, he said, "I'mma be working out. Real serious stuff, huh, girls? So don't bother Mommy too much while I'm gone. Alright?"

Steph watched him go with a slight smile, more annoyed still, honestly, that he would do that without first consulting her. Or at least texting her to say, hey, guess what I'm doing? The act wasn't the problem, but rather the secrecy over it.

Surprise. Your husband's bald. Super funny, right?

Sigh.

Aurora had a lot of stories to retell her mother that day and the afternoon was split for Stephanie between listening to them, helping her with the little bit of homework she had, and dealing with the other two. They were still at an age where 'dealing with them' was rather easy. Vaughn mostly liked to sit in Steph's lap and be snuggled while Murphy just needed her toys and a little interaction.

It was easy to mix all three at once. And also the best part of Stephanie's day.

The rest of the time wasn't so horrible that day either. Paul seemed to think that she truly was peeved about the whole hair thing and mostly focused on their daughters more than her. Vaughn wasn't warming to his new haircut, at all, and would push his head away whenever he tried to kiss her.

So he tried a lot.

It wasn't until they were alone, late that night, and the girls were in their rooms that Stephanie finally asked Paul something that had been bothering her.

"So who exactly cut off your hair?" she asked as they sat in the living room, on opposite sides of the couch. He was flipping through the television and hardly glanced at her. "Did you go and get it cut or-"

"Well, Rora was at school and the other two were with their babysitter and I got off from the office and just...went to go get it done."

"You didn't think that, hey, maybe you should call your wife and-"

"And ask what? Permission?"

Steph gave him one of those weird faces that he found hot, annoyed with one another or not. "Would it have hurt?"

"I was doing it one way or another, so-"

"I mean, I would have liked to at least know the last time that I was going to see my husband with hair."

He rolled his eyes. "I still have hair, babe."

"Not very much."

"Just enough." Reaching up, Paul ran a hand over his head. "And besides, you said, like, two weeks ago when we were talking about it, that it would probably be hot, to you, for me to do something so drastically different-"

"That wasn't just two weeks ago! It was two months ago. At least. Which means that the period in which you can use that as a reference is-"

"Do you not find me hot? Babe?" He turned to stare across the couch then at her which only got him a look. Then, grinning, he added, "Besides, I thought you liked me hairless?"

"I never," she remarked as he ran a hand down the front of his shirt, as if implying his chest, "said I liked you hairless. You just always were."

"That's hurtful."

"That's truthful."

"Maybe I never really liked your hair blonde."

"Maybe you didn't." Steph was still staring him rather heavily in the eyes as she shrugged. "I wouldn't care."

"Good. Because I don't care."

"You shouldn't. There's nothing we can do about it now anyways."

"Alright then."

"Okay."

He still stared over at her. "Are we...fighting? Or-"

"Paul-"

"Because I don't wanna. I'm not even mad. About anything. So-"

"I'm not mad at you either."

"Then… You wanna go find out if you are still attracted to me? With short hair?"

"Bald."

"Steph-"

"I'm not...unattracted to you." She shifted then, closer to him, before moving to lie down with her head in his lap. Paul only stared down at her as she continued. "It's just...different."

"I know." Again, he reached up to run a hand across his fuzzy head. Letting out a slight sigh, he said, "The place I got it cut, like, when he first started cutting it, I was like, shit, there's a part of life."

"Mmmm."

"But I'm not in the ring anymore. I'm up at headquarters. This is right."

"I know it is." She sighed, from his lap, before saying, "It's just weird."

"You got, what? Twelve years now of getting to gawk at me? With long hair?"

"Something like that."

"It should be so burned into your memory that it doesn't matter what I look like now. You should still see 2000 me when you look at me."

"I think you're much hotter now, babe."

She got a wry grin for that one. "Thanks."

"I'm serious."

"Sure."

"I mean, long haired you. This bald business-"

"I ain't bald."

"You know, Paul," she said through what sounded like a yawn, "I sorta liked having something to tangle my fingers in."

"My body isn't just to there to please you, you know."

"Oh, lord."

"It's not." He held his head up higher. "I should feel good about myself. No matter what that means."

"Have you been looking at my self-help books again?"

Shrugging, the man said, "Maybe I mean it when I say it. Because I do. With conviction. I am only here to please myself."

"You know," she griped, "it doesn't help anything when you mock the things I use to feel better about myself."

"My body doesn't belong to you, Stephanie."

"I hate you."

"And you can't control what I do with it." Paul held out an arm then, flexing as he looked down at it. Then, to her, he said, "Besides, babe, I think you'll learn to like my hair like this."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, when we first started fucking-"

"Paul-"

"-you used to get off on that greasy slime that would cake your fingers after running your hands all through my tangled locks-"

"You're reading my romance books too. Great. You know, you really need a new hobby other than going through my stuff."

"That ain't one of your books, babe. That's verbatim come out of your mouth before. Swear it."

"Has not."

"Then you had to get used to my hair with no gel in it," he went on as she shifted on the couch, so that her head was facing his abdomen. "You got used to that."

"I loved that."

"No, no. You said, and I quote-"

"I never said-"

"-that you loved to run your fingers through my gelled up hair and no matter how much you washed your hands after, your fingers still smelled like it." He hummed. "You also used to like the smell of my fingers, but they were typically somewhere else entire-"

"You're about to get it."

"I like my hair cut." He tilted his head down then, to stare at her. "I mean, my head feels a bit cold and it's kind of weird, not having to tie it back or have it down, in my face, but it's only been a few hours and I think I'm-"

"Have you stared at yourself in the mirror yet?" Steph asked. "Like given yourself a long, serious stare?"

"You mean stripped down, oiled up, and flexing in the mirror? Babe, it's not our date night. No. It's weird if I do it alone."

"I'm serious."

"So am I." Then he shrugged. "I mean, yeah, I have been known to do that alone, but-"

"I mean," Steph said as she pushed up, sitting on her knees on the couch as she stared at him, "have you honestly looked at yourself? And liked your appearance now?"

Paul frowned, but only shrugged a bit. "I think that's more of a woman thing, babe. Now, if you'd like to go strip down and watch me flex, all oiled up and shit-"

"We have never done that."

"We should. Couple building."

"How? I'm not…muscular like you."

"Don't mean I don't wanna watch myself in a mirror as I fuck you. With oil. And shit."

"That sounds a lot more like something we do when the girls _aren't_ sleeping right down the hall."

Paul deflated again, just from the mention of their daughters. "You know, it's not cool to bring them up when I'm trying to get you into bed, right? I feel like that something that you should have learned by now, six years out, but you don't see to have."

"And you'd think that you've learned, in these six years, that I only bring them up when I don't _want_ to sleep together, but don't wanna break your heart over it, so I use them as a scapegoat."

"Oh, damn, Steph." Paul was laughing though, as he spoke. "Heartless."

"I can be a Grade A bitch when I need to be."

"No, like, yeah, I know." He wagged his eyebrows at her as their eyes found the others easily, if not a bit more, now that there was no hair in the way. "Turns me on."

It was Steph's turn to try not to laugh, but it was hard, because she just found everything that he did so intoxicating. "I swear, babe, everything I do turns you on."

"Oh, no, there are things that don't." He was turning off the television then because, after over a decade of seeing one another, and nearly one of being married, they were pretty good at reading off one another. And if he was reading what he thought he was, the television was no longer his source of entertainment. "I just play it off like they do."

"Do you now?"

Nodding, he held out a hand to her, as he got to his feet. "Well, yeah. How did you think I've kept you so happy for this many years?"

"Uh, try the long hair."

Paul just grinned. "Then I guess I gotta find a new thing because, believe me, it took me my whole life to get my hair that perfect. Over thirty years. It will never be like that again. So you better get used to this."

"That's kind of sad, isn't it?" Steph sounded far more thoughtful on the subject than he was, but she was always like that, so geeky and stupid. Girlish. "It's like you chose to do something that, once you did it, when you even first started it, you had to go through with it and just deal with it. You couldn't go back. You can't go back."

"You're way too emotional about dumb shit, Steph."

He got elbowed, because he was speaking too loudly then as they headed down the hall to their bedroom, passing their daughters' rooms on the way. Steph stopped and peaked into all three while Paul only stood over her shoulder, taking a few glances of his own, but mostly hoping his wife didn't accidentally wake them up.

Or maybe purposely. Since, apparently, she used them to get out of hurting his feelings.

Heh. His woman was something else.

"And besides," Paul went on, in more of a hushed whisper after they checked on all the kids, "I am the expert at it, anyways, you know. Just jumping off the cliff of no return. That's how I snagged you."

Stephanie rolled her eyes, he was certain of it, even in the darkness of their bedroom before she flicked on a light. "Oh, no, you about returned right back to where you were, even after we started seeing one another. Or did you forget?"

Paul made a face of his own, at her back, as she went over to the dresser to take off her earrings. "Yeah. 2000s me, for all his greatness, was kind of an ass, huh?"

"Kind of." She did glance back at him then as he took to stripping. "Hotter though."

He made a face. "See, I knew you were lying before."

"Oh, like I'm still as hot as I was."

"Hotter."

"You're full of it."

"Maybe." He took very little care with his clothes, just leaving them in a pile on the floor, which should have gotten him yelled at, but they were still in the moment. Even though the conversation had slowed, he could feel it, they were definitely still in it. In only his boxers then, Paul went to take a seat on the bed, watching her. "Or maybe you weren't hot to me back then."

"Oh?"

"And I knew how hot you'd would be though, because I have a thing for older women-"

"I am _not_ older."

Oops. He bit his tongue.

"Older than you were," was his response. "Steph."

She had to give him that.

"How could you know though?" When she was done with her earrings, she still didn't come to him, rather heading into the bathroom. She left the door open though, for him to see her, so their conversation didn't die. "That I'd get hotter?"

"The obvious answer would be that I had a thing to your mother."

"You're very close to ruining your night before I started."

"You didn't let me finish."

"I'm not sure I want to."

"I said that would be the obvious choice."

"I heard you."

"But Steph, you should know," he chided, just a bit, "that I am _far_ from an obvious guy."

"Is that right?"

"That's completely right."

"So if that's not the reason you knew-"

"It's definitely not."

"-then what was?"

"Well… You know," he laughed then as she glanced over from the bathroom doorway, "I honestly thought I'd have come up with an answer by now. That's the thing about you though, that makes it so different from being in the ring; it's harder to think on the fly when talking to you, without sounding like a complete idiot."

"I think that means you might like me. Getting all tongue-tied."

"Yeah, maybe in high school-"

"I think you spent all of high school macking on the teachers since, you know, you're apparently into all that-"

"Macking?" He fell back on the bed, tired of waiting for her. "I feel like we are back in the 90s."

"2000s."

"Whatever."

"90s Paul might have even been too much for me to put up with."

"I can be a bit of a douche."

"Who still hasn't escaped the fact that not only did he call his wife old-"

"Older."

"-but that he also totally just admitted he was attracted to my mother."

"Gross."

"You're the one that said it."

"I said I wasn't that obvious!"

"Keep your voice down, nasty."

"I just meant-"

"You know, babe," Steph offered as he heard the sink faucet come on, "you could just walk it back. Say you were being stupid, admit I was hotter before, and we could move on."

"Why?" She'd shut the door then, on him, as she did...whatever she was doing in there, so he knew that she couldn't hear him as he was mumbling. "When I'm having such a great time digging my own grave?"

When Steph got back to him, he was glad to find her in mostly nothing, other than what looked like one of the shirts he'd tossed on the bathroom floor that morning when he took his shower (again, he probably would have gotten scolded, if Steph wasn't feel so...something, whatever) and, with a grin, he couldn't help, but to tease her a bit.

"You know I worked out in that, huh?" he lied as he only laid there, still, on the end of the bed, feet still on the floor though he'd laid back. Steph had no problem with taking her place straddling his lap, hands resting on his chest. "Full of sweat and grime and drool."

Steph had sniffed the shirt thoroughly before slipping it on (as well as grumbled a bit, to herself, back there in the bathroom) and knew he was just trying to rile her up, so she decided to do the same as she only moaned a bit, just how he liked it, before saying, "Maybe I like your sweat and grime."

He was still lying on his back and only blinked up at her with a slight grin. "And the spit?"

"I _love_ it."

"Knew it," he snickered, hands coming to fall on her hips. "Damn, Steph. I-"

"Hush. Right now isn't about you."

In a house full of women, he found that to typically be true.

"It's not?"

Shaking her head, she slapped his chest twice, as if to tell him to sit up some. When he moved to rest back on his elbows, she ran a hand over the top of his head.

"It's about whether or not I'm going to be able to deal with this or not." She seemed to be doing quite well as she continued to stroke his head and he, honestly, was kind of enjoying it. Steph scraped her nails against his scalp, usually, tugged at his hair, typically all frenzied and shit. Feeling her just...caress his head was a bit new, perhaps she did it before, back when he was feeling down on himself, like during his quad injury, but certainly not in a sexual way. Just comforting.

The way she was now though, it felt like how she would do his muscles some times, curling her fingers slowly over all the indentations and admiring his definition. It always served to excite him, regardless of how tentative the touch. Perhaps even more so when she was just tickling his flesh, ghosting her fingers over his abdomen and biceps, muttering something or other as they frequently did, when they were that way, mostly about nothing, but always something.

At the moment though, her touch was strong, not just gracing his head, but instead pressing rather hard against his still somewhat sensitive scalp, pushing through the short hairs he'd left behind (it would be a bit longer, maybe a year, before he found that he preferred himself completely, as Steph liked to say, bald) forcefully, apparently liking the feeling more than she would be willing to admit.

"I know I'm less hot now," he told her after letting that go on in silence for minute or so, "and even worse than back in 2000-"

"Way less," Steph teased.

"-but do I still turn you on at least?" His hand were gripping then, at her hips. "Right? Steph?"

"Always." One hand remained on his head, but she dropped the other down to his chest, pressing against it heavily. "Agreed?"

Nodding, he whispered, "Now if you'd just let me go get that oil and find us a mirror-"

"You're too full of it, you know that?"

"I know." He was grinning, at himself. And even though she hadn't shifted her hips in the slightest and he wasn't trying to force her to either, they both still felt rather tense, just from being around one another, they could still feel that way, all those years out. Whatever changes came, especially one as silly as a haircut, ultimately meant nothing. "Believe me, I know."


End file.
